Russian possessive pronouns

How to use and how to form Russian possessive pronouns?

You already know that a pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence, making the subject a person or a thing. A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something.

English possessive pronouns are: my, mine, our, its, his, her, their etc . - all words that demonstrate ownership.

In Russian language we also have such pronouns that demonstrates ownership.  

Russian possessive pronouns agree in gender, number and case with the nouns that they refer to.

There are 4 ways of saying the English «my»  in Russian: 

мой, моя, моё, мои. 

Which one you should use?  First of all you should define the gender of the following noun ( Read «How to define the gender of Russian noun? ) 

- for example, you want to say: This is my cat.  
You know that the word  «кот» is masculine, that’s why you should use the pronoun «мой»

- for example, you want to say: This is my family.  

You know that the word «семья» is feminine. That’s why you should choose  «моя» 

- you want to say: This is my place 

the word «место» is neutral. That’s why you should choose  «моё» 

-and for the sentence with plural, for example: These are my children  you should use «мои» .  Это мои дети 

Declension of Russian possessive pronoun Мой, моя, мое, мои

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The same situation with your (singular)

You can choose between твой, твоя, твоё, твои 

• Это твой дом   (this is your house)
• Это твоя мама  (this is your mother)
• Это твоё место   (this is your place)
• Это твои книги   (these are your books)

Declension of these  pronouns are the same as мой,моя,мое, мои

The same situation with your (plural)

You can choose between ваш, ваша, ваше, ваши

• Это ваш телефон?    (is this your phone?)
• Это ваша машина?    (is this your car? )
• Это ваше  письмо?     (is this your letter?)
• Это ваши письма     ( these are your letters) 

The same situation with our 

You can choose between наш, наша, наше, наши

• Это наш дом   (this is our house)
• Это наша семья   (this is our family)
• Это наше место   (this is our place)
• Это наши дети     (this are our children)

And good news!  How to say in Russian his, her or their?  That’s quite easy! 

Его (his)     Её  (her)      Их (their) 

In this situation you don’t need to think about gender, number or case of the following noun.  These Russian pronouns are indeclinable and invariable.

 for example:

• Это его/ её/их  книга   (This is his/her/their book)
• Это его/ её/их  дом      (This is his/her/their house)
• Это его/ её/их  место   (This is his/her/their  place)
• Это его/ её/их  дети    (This is  his/her/their children) 

Russian possessive pronouns are used both adjectivally and pronominally:

Моя книга -  my book

Эта книга -моя  This book is mine